BIT Contest, the largest tech contest in Russia and neighboring countries, will hold its finale on June 28 at Digital October, Moscow’s leading tech event organizer and venue. This year, more than 1,000 applications were received from all Russian regions as well as from neighboring Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Inspired by the MIT $100K competition, BIT contests — short for Business of Innovative Technologies — were organized for the first time in 2003 within Russia’s most prestigious business and technical universities.
With its specialized sections and nominations, BIT covers a wide range of innovation fields:
- Biotechnology and medicine
- Consumer products
- Energy saving technology
- High tech industrial equipment
- Internet
- Publishing and entertainment technologies
- New materials
- Nanotechnology
- Natural resources, ecology, clean tech
- Software
- Telecom and mobile
A special nomination, ‘Global Track,’ has been designed to identify startups with the strongest international potential.
The BIT prize fund totals 5 million rubles (including prize funds of regional stages), or approximately $170,000, not counting a number of grants and various benefits from the sponsors of the contest, which include grants on education in Russia, Europe and USA, participation in business incubators and accelerators, status of the resident by Skolkovo Foundation, RUSNANO nanofabs, etc.
The competition is supported by the Russian Venture Company, a state owned fund of funds dedicated to financing innovation, and Skolkovo, the world-class innovation hub nearing completion near Moscow, as well as Intel, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, major mobile operator MTS, and Rusnano, the national corporation dedicated to nanotechnology.
Since 2010, BIT’s Observation Council has been headed by Richard Kivel, President and Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum.
Foreign investors and journalists will be offered special assistance to get introduced to the most interesting startups and teams.
For more information, please contact Natalya Tsarevskaya-Dyakina [email protected]
